BT outlines its approach to the private 5G market
Private 5G networks are widely viewed as the next big revenue driver for operators as enterprises increasingly understand the value of 5G-enabled solutions. Within BT, these capabilities reside in the Division X part of the organization which was designed to facilitate the transition from telco to techco and, as Division X Head of 5G and IoT Stephane Remy explained, “to scale up and commercialize the development of unique customer solutions to incorporate components such as private networks, IoT, edge compute, etc…”
Remy, speaking during the recent 5G Monetization Forum, said the central thesis is to deliver “outcome-based solutions…The way we’re looking at this is really enabling those customers to accelerate their digital transformation in a very complex world, a very demanding world.”
One of the open questions in the private 5G space, particularly from an operator perspective, is how to organizationally develop vertical-specific expertise so a salesperson can credibly approach a manufacturing enterprise, for instance, and pair the right technology with actual business problems. Remy said Division X has vertical experts who follow particular projects throughout their lifecycle. “You have to be focused on the business outcomes that private 5G can enable,” he said. Developing in-house expertise while interfacing with customers and third-party experts “allows us to get a really deep understanding of the business problem.”
And, in keeping with the emphasis on technology as a solution for a business problem rather than technology for the sake of technology, Remy said BT focuses on delivering proof of value, not just proof of concept.
Design to requirement vs. design to scale
In terms of private 5G value propositions, Remy said BT has two categories: design to requirement and design to scale which come with distinct sales and delivery channels. With regard to design to requirement, “We usually work with early adopter customers and leverage our vertical capabilities…It’s tailored to customer requirements and usually involves professional services. That calls also for specific skills and expertise to address the high complexity of a non-standard service element that this very proposition calls for.”
He continued: “Design to scale is a fully vertically agnostic proposition that’s really focusing on connectivity and usually includes managed services. They both depend on the individual network requirements.”
One example of design to requirement (and also exemplary of how a design to requirement private 5G deployment informs the development of a design to scale private 5G solution) is the work BT did with Ericsson at Belfast Harbour in Northern Ireland. Following a pilot phase, BT delivered a private 5G network across the 2,000-acre site to drive worker safety, security, operational efficiency and a host of other applications that draw on 5G and attendant technologies. Belfast Harbour handles more than 1.75 million people, half a million freight vehicles and 24 million tons of cargo.
“Our success criteria was around latency mainly,” Remy said. He also noted that demonstrating proof of value at Belfast Harbour around key private 5G-enabled applications allows BT to replicate that success with other customers in other industries. “It is really making sure that technically and commercially it really works for the customer, and making sure we have the right technical and commercial models in place so we can do that and scale…just lift and shift what we have. The ability to take a proof of value from one customer to another, and show them in a repeatable way that it’s very easy to driven benefits.”
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